Low Income, Special Needs Students Likely Hardest Hit By Sequester

While the Washington politicians are busy posturing over the looming cuts that will take effect on Friday if the budget sequester bill is not averted local school officials are busy waiting for more details from state officials.

Charleston County School District officials received a letter from the State Department of Education telling them to expect a 5-10 percent cut to the amount of federal dollars coming into the district next school year if the federal budget sequestration is not averted, Executive Director of Federal Programs Michele English told reporters Tuesday.

English said that could amount to $1.4 million - $1.5 million the district won't have to spend on programs that help low income and special needs students, as well as programs that assist teachers and staff with continuing professional development.

The biggest chunk of money would be going to Federal Title 1 programs; things like hiring teachers to keep class sizes small, after-school programs, purchasing additional books for school libraries and programs that help parents, among several others, English said.

"Title 1 is federal dollars that comes to the local districts for high poverty schools," she said. "There are 47 schools in Charleston County with a 70 percent or higher poverty level."

She added that Charleston County and Greenville County are the two largest school districts in the state with the highest levels of poverty, meaning the impacts of losing the Title 1 funding could be felt more directly in those counties than in some other parts of the state.

However English said the Charleston County district, like every other district in South Carolina is waiting for additional details from the state about exactly how the sequestration cuts will filter down to the district and individual school level. For it's part the State Department of Education won't really know either until the cuts happen. If the sequester is not averted by Congress the newly decreased funding levels will be reflected in the 2013-14 school year budgets, which districts will be looking to finalize later this spring ahead of the July 1 start of the fiscal year.

"Until Congress actually moves on this we're in limbo," English said.

For now districts across the state are working under the assumption that the cuts will happen and are looking for places to cut in the budget.

"It means the schools need to look at the soft money funding, things like reducing class size, after-school programs, (etc.), and determine what do they need to have that they can't live without," English said.

English said she is very worried about the pending cuts because they will affect many of the programs the district has enacted in recent years to help under-performing students that are showing positive results.

"It's like having the rug pulled out from under you," she said. "We're seeing test scores rise with these programs and now they're taking the funding for them away."

Federal dollars also help fund the district's IDEA programs which are geared toward students with special needs, Title 2 programs like those that help ESOL students for whom English is a second language and Title 3 programs that assist with teacher development and continuing education.

English also fears the cuts will hurt the country as a whole remain competetive in an increasingly globalized world.

"What bothers me the most here is in the U.S. we are cutting education funding while other countries are doubling their education spending," she said.